


Crossed Circuits

by DestinedJedi87



Category: Dragon Ball Z, ReBoot (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-14
Updated: 2017-05-14
Packaged: 2018-10-31 18:53:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10905372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DestinedJedi87/pseuds/DestinedJedi87
Summary: Welman Matrix is running an experiment on the Gateway Command one second when a User is accidentally transported into Mainframe. The only problem? It's Vegeta...





	1. Arrival in Mainframe

**Author's Note:**

  * For [GohanLSSJ2](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GohanLSSJ2/gifts), [PrismBunny90](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrismBunny90/gifts).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't own Dragon Ball Z or ReBoot.

Bob, Guardian 452, hero of Mainframe and the defender against evil threats, was in his garage back at Eight Ball Apartments, with his face obscured by the large, red hood of his beloved car, digging deep into his engine's bowels in an attempt to repair the classic 262 convertible which, as usual, to no one's surprise, was giving him a difficult time.

 _It's_ _got to be a problem with the port rerouter coil, I'm sure of it!_ he thought stubbornly. _Or maybe it's the axial interface plug? A distended turbo lock? Bad drivers? Ah,_ _spam it! All the training in the Guardian Academy never taught me how to deal with_ _this_ _!_

Sighing, Bob decided maybe it was time to give it a rest for now and head back on into the house. Maybe he could catch that new movie on IHS; _The Last Guardian_. As a Guardian, Bob was intrigued about the idea of only one Guardian on the Net against an army of viruses.

Bob shivered. _On the other hand, maybe it's not such a great idea._

It had been five hours since Megabyte's ultimate defeat only several minutes after the start of his dreadful "Hunt." With some aide from the Codemasters and new revelations about the Keytools brought to light, the Mainframers were able to successfully thwart the insane virus from initiating a cascade reaction that would have deleted all of Mainframe and every Sprite and Binome in the system. Megabyte himself was taken to the Supercomputer to advance the research of the Guardian Collective's Viral Science Division teams, and for the most part, life among the denizens of Mainframe had since returned to normal.

Well, _almost_ normal, anyway.

"BOB!" Enzo shouted through a vidwindow which had suddenly popped up in his apartment, and Bob nearly ran into the floating object.

"Is it Dot?" Bob asked, immediately concerned.

The young Sprite nodded with all the boundless energy of youth.

"Uh-huh. She's at the Principal Office. We need you!" Enzo said with an unmistakable air of urgency.

"I'm on my way, Enzo, just hang on!" Bob told the green-skinned boy as a determined expression flashed across his face.

Enzo nodded again, looking even more frenetic than before.

"Just hurry!" he cried as the vidwindow disappeared.

Bob ran outside to the patio and decompressed a zip-board, speeding off towards the Principal Office in the distance.

* * *

Milliseconds later, Bob could be found within the infirmary at the Principal Office, cradling a bundle of wrappings in his arms while Dot slept peacefully under the energy covers, and etched across Bob's face was an expression of pure, unadulterated joy as he gazed down upon the sleeping face of a baby Sprite. It was apparent she had inherited a lot from her father, namely skin color, which was of a light periwinkle shade of blue, but she'd also inherited her mother's black hair, chin, and nose. Bob practically radiated pure happiness as he held the tiny Sprite in his arms, simply content to just stare at her and enjoy the time he was spending with her like was no next second.

The door slid open and Phong entered.

"Ah, Bob, there you are. Still attending to young Pixel?"

Bob smiled. "Well, Dot's a bit out of it, so I figured, let her have some downtime while I get acquainted with my daughter."

As he said that last word, he positively glowed with delight. It was hard to believe that after everything which had happened throughout their lives, something as wonderful and bright as a new life could be here. It was almost like a dream to Bob after so many hours of agony and struggle. His time in the Web might never have happened in his mind.

Phong nodded, respecting this bit of wisdom.

"Would you care to hold her, Phong?" Bob asked him.

Phong shook his head, slightly disconcerted at Bob's idea.

"Oh... no, I wouldn't want to intrude," he protested.

"I insist," Bob said, smiling. "You're more than just this system's administrator, Phong, you're family to us."

"Well..." Phong was warmed by Bob's words, and he was slowly being swayed. "Very well, but not for too long."

Phong wheeled over as Bob handed the sleeping form of Pixel Matrix over to him. He stroked his long fingers across her face lightly, causing the little infant to wiggle her nose and giggle innocently in her sleep.

Bob laughed.

"I didn't know you were so good with kids, Phong."

Dot had apparently woken up, and was now watching the whole thing with an air of tired amusement.

Phong had the good grace to blush at Dot's words.

"Oh, well, when you have inputted as many cycles as I have, my child, you will be sure to quicktime a thing or two," he explained.

Dot smiled. "True."

Bob got up and walked over to her, wrapping his arm around her shoulders.

"Hey, how're you doing, Dot?" he asked, sounding concerned about her.

Dot shrugged a little. "Not too bad, just a little tired. When can I expect to be back at work, Phong?"

Bob chuckled. "That's Dot for ya. Even with a new daughter to look after, she still wants to work. You're hopeless, Dot."

She punched him in the arm in mock anger.

"Where's Matrix and AndrAIa, Phong?" she asked Phong.

Mouse and Ray had been out-of-system when Pixel was being born, and they were on their way back to Mainframe to see her, but before she'd nodded off, Dot remembered AndrAIa and Matrix were there.

"In the War Room, I believe, finishing up the latest system reports for this cycle," Phong replied.

"While we're on the subject," Bob said, sounding thoughtful as he rubbed his chin, "when is it gonna come time for Matrix and AndrAIa to start their own family like us? It _has_ been five hours, after all."

"I told you before," came a rough voice from the door, "we're happy to keep things the way they are. We don't need to get married."

Matrix had entered the room, looking gruff and disinterested like he always did.

"They need you up in the War Room, Bob," he informed the Guardian without preamble. "We have a small situation."

"What kind of situation?" Bob asked, a frown crossing his face.

Matrix shrugged his massive shoulders. "I'll explain more when we get up there."

"All right, then," Bob agreed, moving over to the doorway.

"Wait up, guys, I'm coming too," Dot grunted as she tried to rise from the bed to follow them.

Before they could protest, Phong glided over to Dot and handed her Pixel, resting his hand on her arm as he said tenderly, "What you need now is rest, my child. Give your format time to adjust, and then you can be back up and working around the cycle."

Dot sighed, knowing Phong was right.

"All right, Phong," she said, sounding very unhappy with it.

With that little crisis resolved, Bob and Matrix left.

* * *

"What's going on?" Bob asked as he entered the War Room behind Matrix.

A CPU captain came up and saluted Bob, who gave him a curt nod and said, "At ease, Captain. What's happened?"

"Sir, as you know, Professor Matrix was running a few tests on the Gateway Command, but a few microseconds ago the energy readings of the Gate started spiking," the One Binome told him. "We don't know what's causing it and even the Professor himself is at a loss to explain the strange phenomenon. All we know, sir, is the amount of energy it's currently producing — if you'll please just follow me over here, sir..."

The CPU Captain walked to a console and typed in a command. A graph of the Gateway Command appeared on the main vidwindow, followed with a chart of various readings taken from the sensors.

Bob absorbed the data swiftly, and his eyes widened in total shock.

"That's impossible," he whispered. "Not even the Core generates that much power."

"There's something else, sir," a Zero Binome working at a computer terminal interrupted. "We've picked up some type of high intermittent virtual resonance pulse. It's scrambling all our sensors, sir, but from what little we were able to ascertain from that signal, it appears to be originating from somewhere outside of Cyberspace."

"What?" Bob exclaimed, now totally floored.

"There's no way!" Matrix agreed.

But further conversation was cut off when the War Room suddenly trembled underneath their feet. The System Voice rang out, cool and clear, like it always was. "WARNING, INCOMING DATA TRANSFER. WARNING, INCOMING DATA TRANSFER."

"Oh, no!" said one of the scientist Binomes. "Sir, there's an energy distortion forming around the city, it's surrounding us!"

On the vidwindows displaying images of the city, lines of energy shot across the sky like zaps of light.

"Can you pinpoint the point of convergence for the distortion?" Bob said.

A Zero Binome on the other side of the War Room called out, "Here, sir! It's hard to tell exactly where it's coming from and it appears to be originating from all around us, but the focal point for that distortion clearly intersects at one location — the Gateway Command."

"Dad!" Matrix said worriedly.

"Captain, patch me through to Welman!" Bob ordered.

The Captain pressed a few buttons on the control console, and the vidwindow's screen now filled with Welman's anxious face; or so Bob assumed, anyway, since it was hard to judge the facial expressions of nulls. The Guardian noted vaguely that they were all a good distance from the Gateway Command, and thanked the User that Welman had at least had the foresight to take that standard security precaution.

Before Bob could say anything, Welman launched into a report.

"All systems showing normal! According to our data, there should be no reason behind that buildup of virtual particles in the Gate!" he said, sounding immensely frustrated. "No residual flux charge, no increase or drop in the energy/ion containment fields, no static in the harmonic wavelengths, no nothing! It should all be working fine. All we did was upgrade the ping function!"

"Welman, get everyone out of there now, and that's an order!" Bob commanded, prepared for the worst. "We'll evacuate all nonessential personnel from the Principal Office, and leave behind a utility team. Maybe they can figure out why the Gate is —"

But a bright light from the Gate behind Welman interrupted Bob and with a startled cry of surprise from Welman and the research team the vidwindow went dead. A crackle of thunder assaulted Bob's eardrums and the floor underneath pitched, sending Bob and the rest of the War Room workforce flying to their knees from the force of the explosion.

"Dad! No! This can't be happening!" Matrix yelled.

"Calm down, Matrix," Bob said. "Glitch, get me a line. Put Welman through."

 _If you can,_ he added silently to his faithful companion.

To Bob's surprise and quiet relief, a picture of Welman Matrix appeared on the Keytool's hard surface.

"Welman, are you okay?" Bob pressed insistently.

Welman's nullsuit seemed unharmed, though the Professor himself sounded a little shaken up.

"Uh, uh, yes, I'm fine," he reassured the Guardian. "Uh, though I can't understand why —"

"Professor!" someone called him from off-screen. "You better come take a look at this!"

Welman turned to face the speaker — while he was doing that, Bob took the time to survey the War Room. The computer interfaces and vidwindows had all gone dead, but it looked like everyone was fully functional.

"Everybody all right?" he inquired.

There were murmurs of agreement, so Bob glanced back down at Glitch. "Professor, wha..."

"Bob!" the Professor's voice sounded urgent. "I think you'd better get down here! There's something you should see."

Bob exchanged a glance with Matrix, wondering what in the Net it could be.

"I'm heading down there! Clear the halls so no one gets in my way," the maverick ordered gruffly, exiting the room.

Bob followed him.

* * *

As soon as the two arrived in the Core Room, they knew something was wrong. A group of Binomes were clustered a few dozen feet away from the Gate, which was now completely shut down. Bob was relieved to see no one had been deleted or sustained any fatal injuries, but on closer inspection, he noticed every person in the chamber had on their features an expression of shock and awe as though they were gazing at a corrupted file.

Bob and Matrix ran over.

"Dad, are you all right?" Matrix demanded. It was not his function to act sentimental, except maybe to AndrAIa, of course, who understood him the best — and speaking of the Game Sprite, she was there, too, and had the same not-quite-believing expression on her face.

"I'm fine, son," Welman reassured him.

"What is it, Professor?" Bob asked, stepping closer. "Why did you call us he..."

But he trailed off suddenly as his eyes caught sight of... _something_ lying amid the gaggle of onlookers.

It appeared to be a Sprite, maybe v.3.0 or older, and he wore a very strange clothing format. He had on blue a spandex jumpsuit with white gloves and boots. His skin was of a rich peach color, with pointy black hair which poked up around his head like a surrounding halo as well as hard features and an elongated face that gave it the look of a heart.

For a moment no one spoke.

Then, Bob at last broke the silence.

"Um, what is that?"


	2. The Power of Vegeta

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't own Dragon Ball Z or ReBoot.

After a microsecond, the Professor spoke.

"I don't know," he answered honestly. "We were trying to shut down the Gate when, all of a sudden, there was a surge in the energy output of the Gateway Command. We thought we were gonna be deleted any nanosecond, but then there was a large explosion, and this thing came through the Gate." He shrugged. "Of course, I don't know what it is."

"Glitch," Bob commanded, and the Keytool beeped in the affirmative. "Full-spectrum scan. Let's see what this thing is."

A bunch of readings began scrolling across Glitch's face, and Bob frowned at what he was seeing.

"What is it, Bob?" Matrix demanded, noticing the sudden change that had come over the Guardian.

"Is there something bothering you?" AndrAIa added.

"I'm not sure," Bob replied, looking puzzled. "I'm having trouble getting a clear lock on this thing — whatever it is, its code is much denser than the typical Sprite; it's almost like it was compiled in extremely harsh parameters, like the kind found in the Web."

"The Web?!" everyone around him screamed in horror.

"By the User!" Welman exclaimed. "Do you think this thing came from the Web, Bob?"

"Hard to say, really," Bob replied. "It's not compiled like something you'd find on the Net, that's for certain, but all lifeforms in Cyberspace share a similar format, even Codemasters; as far as I can ascertain, this thing doesn't have an icon; no PIDs. It's almost like..."

And then Bob gasped.

"No, it can't be..." he whispered, stunned.

"What?" Matrix asked him gruffly. "What's wrong, Bob?"

"Well, I was just thinking... but no, it's impossible," Bob muttered to himself. "No way. This really can't be happening... although that would explain all of these strange readings that Glitch picked up just now..."

" _What?_ " Matrix pressed, sounding irritated now at Bob's evasions.

Instead of answering, Bob turned to the CPU captain who had followed them down to the Core Room.

"Captain, you said the signal emanating from the Gate was coming from an area outside Cyberspace, right?" Bob said.

The Captain saluted. "Yes, sir, Guardian."

"What are you thinking?" Welman asked the blue-skinned Sprite.

"Yeah, come on, spill it for us, Bob," AndrAIa agreed.

Bob glanced back to his friends, frowning intently. "Nothing concrete, but, well, all I know is you won't find other lifeforms like this anywhere else in the Net or even in the Web. No PID means this thing shouldn't exist in our reality, and yet, it's still here. Its code and format is unlike anything we've encountered before — I doubt that even the Guardian Archives would be able to come up with a file on this creature... _and_ it appeared at _exactly_ the same time as that mysterious pulse signal so the two are obviously connected..."

"What are you _really_ saying, Bob?" Matrix said shrewdly.

"I'm saying I think this thing came from someplace outside the Net, the same as that pulse signal," Bob explained. "I know you're all going to think my memory files are corrupted, but as impossible as it may sound, I suspect this Sprite is really... _the User_."

Everyone around him gasped.

"Bob, are you serious?" Welman asked.

Bob nodded. "Deadly serious."

"But that's impossible, Bob!" AndrAIa objected. "No one's ever been able to prove the User even _exists_."

"I know, but it's the only explanation that fits the available search parameters," Bob said.

"So that thing could be a User!" Matrix growled furiously, as Gun detached itself from his leg holster and flew to his hand. He leveled Gun at the unconscious being. "We should delete it now before it wakes up."

"Hold on, Matrix," Bob said. "We don't know anything about him."

"What's there to know?" Matrix demanded. "He's a User! In Games he tries to delete us and nullify the system."

"But imagine all the things we could learn from him, son!" Welman said.

"I don't care about learning anything from him," Matrix snapped, Gun now glowing a dangerous red in its targeting sights.

"Sparky, don't be this way," AndrAIa said, laying a warm, delicate hand over Matrix's enormous bicep. "I know we had a rough time in Game Cubes, but Professor Matrix is right. This could be the most important discovery in the history of the Net."

"How can you say that after all we've been through?" Matrix inquired incredulously as he shook her off.

Before any of them could say anything further, however, the being before them suddenly groaned. Everybody but Professor Matrix, Bob, AndrAIa, and Matrix gasped and backed up several feet away from him.

"He's waking up," Welman noted.

"Move aside!" Matrix commanded, pointing Gun directly at the slowly recovering User.

Bob grabbed Matrix's hand, guiding it down before the maverick Guardian could shoot the User.

"We can't just erase him, Matrix!" Bob objected passionately. "Not while I'm still this system's Guardian."

Slowly, the User made his way upright, holding his head.

"Ugh, where the hell am I?" he demanded as he rose to his feet.

Bob, feeling himself to be a sort of representative of the group, moved forward to deal with the situation.

"I am Guardian 452," he declared. "Please state your name and function."

Now that he was standing, the spiky-haired User turned a fiery glare on the veteran Guardian.

"And who are you?" he said rudely, suddenly smirking. "The welcoming committee?

"He asked you a question!" Matrix snarled, lifting Gun up again. "If you're smart, you'll answer it!"

The User turned a smug taunting face on the green-skinned renegade.

"And what if I don't feel like playing this pointless little game?" he mocked him.

"Sparky..." AndrAIa said warningly, but Matrix ignored her as his prosthetic eye slid into focus as he aimed Gun at the User and what was unmistakably a red target appeared across the User's chest.

"I blast you into a thousand bits of code," Matrix responded harshly.

"Wait, Matrix..." Bob began, hoping to stall the coming violence, when suddenly, the User burst into laughter!

"As if you could ever harm me with that silly thing. How sad, a man your age playing with toys," he said with a cruel grin.

"Oh, that is it!" Matrix shouted.

"MATRIX, NO!" Bob cried, but it was too late.

BAM! A gigantic bomb of pure energy erupted from Gun's barrel and slammed point-blank into the User's chest, however, to the surprise of everyone there, he just stood there, staring down at the spot that it had hit; it didn't look like it had even fazed him!

"I'm sorry, was that supposed to hurt me?" the User taunted.

"That's impossible!" Matrix said, his good eye widening.

"Matrix, stand down!" Bob barked. "You'll accomplish nothing by doing this!"

"Oh yeah?" Matrix retorted, taking aim again. "Just watch me!"

BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM!

A hail of fire erupted from Gun's nozzle as Matrix unloaded a whole barrage of energy grenades on the User, who simply stood there the whole time smirking as each blast dissipated harmlessly against his torso.

After a few microseconds, Matrix ceased firing, standing there with a look of total, abject shock written upon his facial features.

"No way..." he whispered, sounding stunned.

The User in front of him laughed again. "There, you've had your little fun. Now... it's my turn."

Suddenly, the spiky-haired User moved quicker than their eyes could really follow; one nanosecond, he was standing there with legs spread apart and arms braced; a nanosecond later, he had launched himself at Matrix with startling speed.

WHAM!

The User's elbow connected solidly with Matrix's jaw, sending him flying a hundred meters as Gun fell from his slack grip.

"SPARKY!" AndrAIa cried, concerned.

THUD!

Matrix collided with the far wall on the opposite side of the Core Room, which cracked under the force of the impact.

"Oh no, Matrix!" Bob called out.

The renegade slid down the wall, seeming a bit dazed but otherwise unharmed. Turning his face back up to stare daggers at the now cocky User, he extended his hand out, and reacting to the command, Gun lifted up and flew across the chamber into his waiting hand.

"ENZO, STOP!" Welman said, hoping to put an end to the violence.

But Matrix, either because he didn't hear or him or didn't care, ignored his advice and unleashed more energy bombs on the User.

"That again, huh?" the User sighed. "How disappointing. Haven't you figured it out yet? GUNS DON'T HURT ME!"

And with that the User shot off into the air, heading directly for Matrix!

"He... he can fly!" Welman remarked, sounding utterly fascinated.

"File it away for later, Professor!" Bob said worriedly. "Matrix is gonna get himself killed if we don't do something!"

"No, that's not happening!" AndrAIa said determinedly.

And she whipped out her trident and engaged it in "spear mode."

"I don't care who this man is, he's _not_ erasing Matrix!" she announced. "Not while I'm still processing!"

Bob glanced down at the Keytool by his side. "Glitch, hang glider!"

And at once the construct rearranged its shape into said hang glider. Knowing that Matrix couldn't last for long against the insanely powerful User, Bob raced to the ledge of the platform that the Principal Office's subsphere normally occupied and jumped off the side towards the User with the Game Sprite performing a series of athletic flips to keep up.

On the other side of the chamber, the User set down in front of Matrix.

"I hope you realize the futility of your efforts," he growled. " _No one_ challenges Vegeta and lives to get away with it."

Now furious, Matrix threw Gun to the side and launched himself at the User, winding his fist back for a punch.

THUMP!

In an instant, the User known as Vegeta had caught the punch in his palm like it was nothing.

"I'm sorry, _what_ was that?" Vegeta demanded. "Maybe I haven't made myself clear yet, you worthless insect."

And Vegeta applied pressure to Matrix's fist, who cried out in pain; it was like crushing his hand in a hydraulic press!

" _You don't stand a chance against the Prince of Saiyans!_ " Vegeta shouted.

WHAM! In response, he brought his fist into Matrix's stomach, sending the maverick Guardian keeling over from sheer agony.

BAM! And Vegeta followed up with a strong punch to Matrix's cheek that sent him flying into a wall, burying him under a pile of rubble. A microsecond later, Matrix burrowed his way out of the debris with a savage cry and a death glare at the User.

"I don't care what it takes or how strong you are!" he said. "You're going down, User!"

"Oh, really?" Vegeta asked, smirking. "And just how do you plan to do that? So far you haven't managed to hurt me even once."

Growling fiercely, Matrix threw another punch at Vegeta, which the flame-headed User ducked with super speed to avoid. Matrix followed up with a series of punches, kicks, uppercuts, and side swipes that didn't hit the User even one time!

"Will you stand still and let me hit you?!" Matrix grunted from sheer frustration.

"Have it your way," the User said as he stopped dodging rapidly.

WHAM! And just like that, Matrix slammed his fist directly across the Saiyan Prince's jaw, which didn't even budge him in the slightest! And Matrix, however, fell to the floor cradling his shattered hand — it felt like punching the hardest steel known to Cyberspace.

"Let's see you take this!" Vegeta said.

And just like that, the floodgates were opened as Vegeta began pounding every square inch of Matrix that he could see. For a few microseconds, the world became a blur of pure agony as Matrix endured the worst beating he'd experienced in cycles.

WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! WHAM!

"Oh, what was that, you little green bean?!" Vegeta snarled while he maintained that furious barrage. "You said you were going to take me down! What's wrong? Why haven't you done that yet?! Don't tell me you're having second thoughts?"

WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! WHAM!

And finally, Vegeta ended with a vicious punch to Matrix's chest, and with a sickening crunch of broken bones as multicolored liquid spewed from his mouth he flew back several meters and didn't get up again.

Vegeta spat to the side. "How pathetic. Well, he won't be bothering me anymore."

Suddenly, Vegeta sensed an attack coming from behind him, and within the space of a fraction of a single nanosecond, the User spun around, catching the incoming spears before they'd impaled him.

"No!" AndrAIa growled. "How did he know I was coming?"

"And what did you think you were going to do with this?" he told the orange-skinned female mockingly.

"You just leave _him_ alone!" she fired back. "Your fight is with _me_ now!"

The User laughed. "Oh really? Well, by all means, let's see what you can do... _right after I do this!_ "

Lifting that trident easily, Vegeta hefted AndrAIa up into the air as though she were made of paper, much to the Game Sprite's surprise, and aimed his hand out at her. Yellow energy gathered in his palm and a nanosecond later, he blasted it up, straight at the helpless AndrAIa!

She cried out in pain as the blast caught in her stomach and dragged her out across the Core Room — the beam of energy arced above, and then slowly, came down several hundred meters away, smashing into the floor with a colossal explosion!

KABOOM!

Vegeta laughed like a corrupted program.

"What a weakling!" he cackled. "But she made a great fireworks display!"

And just then, a voice called from the side. "Glitch: Wide-field energy beam!"

Instantly, a much stronger beam of energy, yellow in color, collided against Vegeta's torso. Without so much as flinching, the User turned to the side and found Bob standing there with his arm aimed at the Saiyan Prince.

"Stand down and desist!" Bob ordered sternly. "I'm ordering you as the defender of this system and trust me, bub, you _don't_ wanna make an enemy of the Guardian Collective! There's more of us than there are of you!"

"Oh, and why would that be?" Vegeta said mockingly as he turned aside and started walking towards Bob. "If they're all as disgustingly weak as you are, my blue friend, then I have absolutely nothing to worry about!"

"Glitch, wide-field energy beam, full power!" Bob commanded. "Continuous discharge!"

And again, that energy beam slammed right into the User, but again, like before, it didn't seem to have any effect!

"When will you maggots get it through your head?" he asked. "You can never hope to match the powers of a Saiyan warrior!"

"Glitch, draw additional power from the Core!" Bob said frantically.

Without warning, the intensity of the beam increased as it seemed to appear as little more than a solid wall of light, connecting directly with Vegeta's body, who continued walking forward without seemingly any discomfort!

"Ouch, that almost tickles," Vegeta sneered.

"I don't believe it!" Bob gasped. "He's absorbing the energy!"

Suddenly sensing that discretion was the better part of valor when dealing with Users Bob discontinued the beam and turned to run as he desperately cried out to his Keytool, "Glitch — get me out of here!"

Immediately, the Keytool shot out a grappling hook and latched onto a ledge several hundred meters away as Bob swung away in retreat.

"Oh no, you're not getting away that easily!" Vegeta vowed.

In response the Saiyan shot into the air, heading directly towards the fleeing Guardian! Bob only had a microsecond to look back in horror as Vegeta's fist made contact with his face, sending Bob flying down into Core as his screams slowly died down.

"What a disgrace," Vegeta remarked. "They call themselves warriors? I've known Tuffles who fight better than they did!"

He glanced upward at the ceiling looming high above and frowned thoughtfully. "Now, where am I? I never should have agreed to be a part of that damn woman's experiments. Oh, well. I suppose I can figure it out easily enough."

And with that said, he blasted off into the ceiling as he smashed right through it towards his freedom...

* * *

Mouse was in Dot's room in the infirmary.

"Oh, she's a little darlin', Sugah," Mouse said to Dot.

"Yes, she is," said Dot fondly. "But where's Ray? I figured he'd want to be here for this."

Mouse's face fell. "We... broke up, Sugah. Last minute."

"Oh." Dot looked apologetic. "I'm sorry, Mouse... I didn't know."

"That's all right, there, Dot," said Mouse. "I guess we can't all have happy endings like you and Bob or Matrix and AndrAIa."

"Is there somebody else?" Dot asked slyly, knowing Mouse was hiding something.

Mouse shrugged, winking mischievously. "Maybe. But I ain't tellin'."

Dot knew she was fighting a losing battle, so she said, "Okay."

Then Dot's communicator beside the bed beeped twice, stopped, then did it again.

"Oh, this spamming thing?" Mouse said irritably. "I'll shut it off."

"No, Mouse!" said Dot. "I left it on just in case, twice means urgent!"

She snatched it out of Mouse's hand and clicked it on, pushing her new baby into Mouse's arms as she said, "Yes?"

"Dot," Bob said, sounding wounded, "sorry to bother you, but... we have a situation! There's a User loose in Mainframe!"

"What?" Dot exclaimed. "No way!"

"Yes," Bob answered. "I wouldn't have disturbed you, but this is for _real_ , Dot. He's already dispatched of Matrix, AndrAIa, and me without any effort! We need you — can you meet me up in the War Room?"

"I'm on my way," Dot said, switching off the communicator.

"What was that all about?" Mouse asked.

"Mouse, I'm sorry, but could you look after Pixel for a while? They need me for something."

"Sure thing, darlin'," said Mouse, "but what's going on?"

"There's a User in Mainframe," Dot replied, sounding tense.

And Dot left, leaving a stunned-looking Mouse behind.


End file.
